Xinna speaks with the aggrieved yet defiant air of someone who has told her story a hundred times without results. Sitting at a table on a Hohhot footpath sipping Mongolian milk tea, she at first tries to ignore the secret police who watch her meeting with a visitor. Then she takes a more cynical approach and waves at them, smiling.
'I have nothing to hide. Let them watch,' said Ms Xinna, emphatic that what the government appears to be increasingly afraid of is unlikely to happen.
While there are simmering ethnic tensions between Han Chinese and the native Mongol population over the latter's loss of culture and influence, Mongols are nearly unanimous in saying they have little desire to see a Tibet-style uprising or any active protest. The Olympic torch will be in Inner Mongolia between July 11 and 13.
'People have suggested to me that something could be planned [a protest during the Olympic torch relay] but I have refrained so far. Not many people are willing to take those risks,' Ms Xinna said. 'Although sport has nothing to do with politics, the Olympics do have something to do with human rights. China promised better human rights when they got the Olympics, but they have not done that.'
Ms Xinna's husband, Hada, a Mongol intellectual and teacher, has been in jail since 1995. He is serving a 15-year sentence for founding the Southern Mongolian Democratic Alliance to defend Mongol rights. Human Rights in China and Amnesty International say Hada has been tortured in prison.
This has made Ms Xinna, who, like most Mongols, uses only one name, a minor local celebrity, and her small book and music shop near the Inner Mongolia University has become a warehouse of Mongol culture and a well-known reference point among intellectuals. She said that although she has never done more than peddle Mongol books and traditional music, police surveillance of her increased dramatically after the ethnic riots broke out in Tibet.